While Joe South's big hit as a performer 'Games People Play' wouldn't appear to owe anything to Bacharach, the two hits he wrote for Billy Joe Royal a few years earlier in 1965, 'Down in the Boondocks' and 'I Knew You When' obviously do, rather too obviously in the case of the intro to the former song. Maybe it was the similarity of Royal's voice to Gene Pitney that made Joe South draw so heavily from 'Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa'. And although Dionne Warwick's recording of 'Anyone Who Had a Heart' was already two years old at the time, it's obvious Joe South couldn't quite get it out of his head when he wrote 'I Knew You When'. Here are the two Billy Joe Royal hits:

Bacharach referenced 'Boondocks' and its intro in his autobiography stating that impersonation was the sincerest form of flattery. In other words he didn't sue. I wasn't aware of 'I Knew You When' until Linda Ronstadt cut it in the 80s and that possibly prompted her to record the song that so evidently 'inspired' it a couple of albums later.

What might have irked Bacharach the most about 'Down in the Boondocks' was that it was actually a bigger hit in the US than 'Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa'. 'I Knew You When' was also a Top 20 hit in the States and that coupled with the fact that Bacharach didn't sue must have made Joe South wonder, "How the hell did I get away with that?"

Last edited by pljms on Wed Apr 20, 2016 2:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I still love listening to early Chicago and Robert Lamm has professed himself to be a Bacharach admirer in more than one interview. Of all Chicago's early hits 'Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?' is probably the one that betrays Lamm's admiration for BB the most. Just listen to the brass arrangement on this.

pljms wrote:I still love listening to early Chicago and Robert Lamm has professed himself to be a Bacharach admirer in more than one interview. Of all Chicago's early hits 'Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?' is probably the one that betrays Lamm's admiration for BB the most. Just listen to the brass arrangement on this.

The often Bacharach influenced late 60s songs of Jimmy Webb never cease to fascinate and to give pleasure. On a rare recent visit to the forum of JW's official website I discovered what looks like to be the debut recording of a song that featured on Thelma Houston's Webb produced 'Sunshower' album. I don't know anything about Piper Grant other than that her recording of 'Crazy Mixed-Up Girl' was produced and arranged by the same people behind the 5th Dimension at around the same time:

Singer/songwriter and former Animals keyboardist Alan Price performs both Bacharach (Any Day Now & Please Stay) and Randy Newman at his monthly gigs at the Bull's Head in Barnes and I've often thought that his song Poor People written and performed for the 1973 film O Lucky Man sounds like it might have been a collaboration between the two. Anyway it's a lovely song.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mmOxBd5ah3A